Welcome to the fourth round of the Historic Trophy at Spa67, the classic track with new layout for GPL. This is the long awaited update to the Papy original. Perhaps THE classic Grand Prix circuit, the original triangular shaped course was designed in 1920 by Jules de Their and Henri Langlois Van Ophem. It used public roads between the towns of Spa, Malmedy and Stavelot. The course was extremely fast and was made even faster in 1939 with the introduction of the famous Eau Rouge section. The circuit was completely revised and shortened for the 1981 Belgian Grand Prix but it is the classic 60's 8.761 mile version of the track that we will use for this race.

This version of the circuit was used between 1946 and 1970 and corners like Eau Rouge, Burnenville and particularly Masta presented the drivers with exceptional challenges. Due to the combination of high speed, length and lack of any possible run off, the circuit was very dangerous and claimed the lives of many drivers.

Well that was a short lived farce.I think only one car (pole sitter?) got the green button for the start. A little after the start the rest of us got the green button to start from the pits. I clicked on the green and got hit before the screen got to the cockpit. Race over before it even started. Not that I think this should count as an official race.

I'd love to say it was the start that messed me up too, but I ended up clipping the wall on the exit from Mastra, something I hadn't done in the many practice laps I'd done. Just a bit frustrating as I wanted to make the finish on this one.

I think there was either a technical glitch or it was a cunning plan by the pole sitter At least the leader got through Eau Rouge without incident!!

The start from the pits for everyone else was a total lottery. Sorry to hear that you were knocked out that quickly Syd, I received a "love tap" from someone in the mayhem that re arranged my steering geometry. That was something that I only discovered through Borneville and fully experienced at Stavelot when I really wanted to lean on the front left tyre.....it did not respond well!! Hit the concrete wall and race was over.

watched the field through on the first lap to see who was still running and everyone whose pit stall was infront of the S/F line was showing a lap down!! This will take some sorting out by the mods I think.

Sincere apology to the Honda. I thought I had braked extra early for Stavelot. Realised that traffic had was slowing more than I expected. I steered into the verge to avoid everyone but hit the kerb & bounced back into the Honda. Not sure if this is false start due to green button issues. If not I will report.

I received a "love tap" from someone in the mayhem that re arranged my steering geometry.

That was me Clive. I was leaving my pit stall when you spawned right in front of me. I guess that happened throughout the pit stalls. I did get away quickly behind Bastian and Andreas and I thought that my luck was in. Their battle was hairy and didn't look like it was going to last long. Doni was behind me and then there was a gap. We were all taking our time, but for me, the FPS were bad all over the place. It was hard work and I let Doni by for some free space. Soon after I was off the track and doing a ridiculous barrel roll. I had to go and count them in my replay - ten times back onto my wheels until I hit the edge of Spa World and then another roll back. Amazingly I could just drive away back to the track with only a couple of positions lost. Mechanical report says just minor and medium problems with right front. A few laps later I had a terminal crash and there weren't many still running then.

I've corrected the race results to account for those drivers with pit stalls that were in front of the start line and hence did not have the start of lap 1 registered with the lap counter.

A very odd start to the race, thankfully there is no pit wall at Spa so most people had a clean getaway. I think only Evil and Syd were badly affected. We don't normally do re-runs for mass discos etc but this was a strange one.

It could have been anyone in that chaos, with cars spawning and trying to get away. Plenty of ducking and diving in response to what happened ahead and around. Actually it appears that it was only Syd and myself that suffered any damage, which is quite remarkable when there was 18 cars materialising from thin air and trying to get out of the pits at the same time.

Well that's one for the books, eh, boys? Never in all my days of GPLand have I witnessed the situation presented us for the start. All but one, it seems, had no green button to join the grid. Only Axel had the privilege. Realizing that something had gone seriously wrong, I opened the chat box to see many claiming that they, too, had no button. I chatted, 'WAIT' and hoped that everyone realized that there was a chance to join once the grid...however small...had been flagged away. It seems that most everyone struck the button at more or less the same time as cars dropped into their stalls rapidly. I took off as quickly as I could veering out of the stall area knowing that at any instant, someone could appear directly in my path. Got lucky there. Clive and Syd not so. Bad luck, gys. It was at least a thrill to finally have a 'LeMans start' as per Sam's noting above.

My pit board was giving me bogus information for the duration as I started down-track of the S/F line. I realized this but kept a cool head believing that things would be sorted out post-race.

I managed to slot in behind Andy's Ferrari for the first lap but he kindly seemed to give me a wave-by on Lap02. TY. Then Bastian got it wrong coming up to La Source crashing mightily and biffing my Lotus. Lucky to have the car seem undamaged and pointing the right way. Not for the first time by any means there then ensued a ripper of a battle with Andreas in the Cooper-Maser. For a good 10 laps, we exchanged the position with slip-streaming and counter-slip-streaming. All very proper and decent and respectful of each other but very tense all the same. Not being entirely sure when we would see the checker, I endeavoured to have the lead as we reached the S/F line. The extra bhp of the H-16 BRM powerplant was a telling factor as I seemed to be able to pass going up the hill towards Blanchimont whereas all Andreas could manage was to level-peg it. Still, it was in considerable doubt right up to the end. I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally saw the checker just a tick ahead of AG. PHEW! Great drive and battle, Andreas!

Should the result stand? Why, of course! To be sure, the event was an anomaly but I don't think that anyone sat at their terminal with someone holding a gun to their head forcing them to push that green button once it appeared however late.